Clap When You Land By Elizabeth Acevedo

Welcome Back Booklovers!


While April wasn't my most enjoyable reading month I'm determined to make the best of May. And it already started off with a bang. I was lucky enough to get the chance to read an arc of Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo.

I've been listening to some of her spoken word, and following her on Twitter for awhile now. But this year I'm determined to dive into her books. I started with her short story Gilded, followed up with The Poet X and my next will be With the Fire On High.

The hype is well deserved! She writes so beautifully switching between poetry and prose. She showcases Afro-Latino heritage in all glory. She doesn't use a lot of words but the ones she does she uses well. It's amazing how someone can take such painful topics and make them resonate with you without gruesome graphic details. Sexual assault, sex trafficking, racism, colorism, Antihaitianismo, and Santeria are just some of the many elements that make up this story without being the sole story.

    

I live around a lot of Dominicans so I've heard the jokes and the stories about men who have a family in the US and a family in DR. This story is about the two daughters of a man who lived a double life which is not revealed until a tragic plane accident. Both girls are dealing with the fallout of their father's death as well as the new discovery of each other.

Yahaira lives in NYC. She goes to private school and is a former chest champion. Her mother is fair skinned and comes from a prominent Dominican family. She manages a salon and has an appearance described as Miss Universe perfect. Her family owns their apartment outright and she lives next door to her girlfriend. Yahaira may seem like she has this amazing life and in some aspects she does but there's so much more below the surface. Her relationship with her father has been rocky for months with her barely speaking to him and her appearance and her mother's families mean comments over the years make her sometimes feel inferior.

Camino's life is a life many girls live not in just DR but in many countries. She's got more than many in her poor neighborhood thanks to Papi always sending money but not even close to comparable to what most girls her age have in the US. He pays for her to receive a good education at a fancy private school and one day hopes to bring her to the US where she can study to become a doctor.

In some ways their father's death affects them equally the same and in other ways it's different.  Yahaira. Though she and her mother are both shaken by their loss and can't seem to agree on how it should be handled at least they have each other. Camino lives her with her Tia as her mother passed away years earlier and she is feeling like an orphan. Yahaira has her girlfriend and girlfriend's family who treat her like one of their own and try to look out for her. Their relationship is treated as normal and not a spectacle. Meanwhile Camino is trying to avoid a pimp named El Cero who is trying to coerce her into sex trafficking.

One element this story highlighted which I appreciated was the positives of Santeria which is a very controversial religion. I have family from the Caribbean and there's a stigma about these religions rooted in African culture. Some people simply write them off as black magic with spells and potions. In this story Tia Solana is a much revered member of her community often using her healing herbs and prayers to aid those who cannot go to a hospital or clinic.

Camino has a best friend Carline whose family is Haitian. If you know anything about Dominican and Hatian relations then you know that despite sharing the same island there is a lot of animosity between them. Carline is pregnant and does works at a resort which is a job Camino's Papi helped her secure. Due to Anti-Haitianism Carline's family is too afraid to take her to a hospital knowing she may be refused treatment or treated poorly and instead rely on Tia Solana and her remedies and prayers.

I read this story over the course of two days and could barely put it down. Both sisters voices were so distinct that I was never confused about which character was narrating as the chapters switched back and forth.